Ganga Prem Hospice

Ganga Prem Hospice is a spiritually orientated, non-profit hospice for terminally ill cancer patients. The Hospice is being constructed in Rishikesh at the foot of the Himalayas on the bank of the river Ganga. The Hospice will provide medical, emotional and spiritual support for individuals and their grieving families.

A majority of Ganga Prem Hospice's patients are under-privileged. In the terminal stages of their disease, with little palliative and medical care help, paucity of finances, and family members who are not equipped to take care of a cancer patient at home, patients suffer agonising symptoms in the last days of their lives. Over-crowded hospitals, and limited avenues for accessing oncological care makes the patients' plight worse.

The Ganga Prem Hospice project has been established with the objective of providing palliative care to end-of-life cancer patients. The 27-bed inpatient facility in Rishikesh was inaugurated on the 28th February, 2017. It is only the second cancer hospice in North India.

At present, Ganga Prem Hospice runs an out-patient and home care service. A team of a doctor, three nurses, nursing assistant, and trained volunteers and medical professionals reach patients in their homes giving them pain relief, and controlling their symptoms. Their work includes supporting patients physically and emotionally. It also encompasses giving guidance and emotional support to the families, reaching food supplies to help destitute patients and their carers tide over during a difficult hour, taking patients to the hospital and sponsoring their palliative oncological treatment. Even after the patient has passed away, grieving families continue to receive bereavement support.

The Ganga Prem Hospice Home Care Service is the only one of its kind in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand. Based in Rishikesh, the health care teams of the Hospice travel to cancer patients' homes daily.

A taxing job physically and emotionally; the Ganga Prem Hospice team works relentlessly as ever new patients need their support. With seventy percent of cancer cases in India being diagnosed only in the advance stages, the palliative care burden in India is huge, and unfortunately, also unseen.

Six years after this dedicated and full-time home care service was launched, Ganga Prem Hospice has served 515 terminally ill patients in their homes. Many of them have passed away, and the only reward and satisfaction that the Ganga Prem Hospice team has is, that we were able to make the last days of these patients somewhat easier and more comfortable.

You can help the Ganga Prem Hospice. All financing to run this programme comes from donors. We pay salaries to our nurses and doctor, we buy surgical dressings, medicines and medical supplies, we expend on fuel to reach the patients travelling upto two hundred kilometers everyday, we maintain the medical records of each patient we serve. All this, while not charging our patients a single rupee.